What You Know of the World is Wrong: Expectation & Surprise
This workshop is part of the POETRY FESTIVAL
Robert Frost famously wrote, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” That sounds great, but how exactly is “surprising” work actually created. This generative class will focus on how writers consciously shape a sense of expectations for the reader, expectations which might later be intensified or overthrown. We’ll write and workshop new poems throughout the week, and we’ll leave the session with several poems and a handful of new skills that can sustain us.
BIOGRAPHY
Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route and two previous collections of poems, Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, and Kundiman, Olzmann's poems have appeared in the New York Times, Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prizes, New England Review and elsewhere. He teaches at Dartmouth College and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
